Abstract：In order to study the influence of external factors on the insulator dynamic contamination, the contamination process of ZS-35KV/6-8 solid core post insulator were studied using coupled methods of DEM and CFD, the effects of particle diameter, wind speed, coming angle of wind on contamination were investigated using discrete element method. The results show that in a certain period of time, the polluting area rate and the number of dirty particles adhered to the surface shows a linear increasing trend. The particle adhesion rate increases initially and then decreases gradually with the increase of wind speed. When the adhesion rate reaches the maximum, it has the optimum wind speed for pollution which showes a logarithmic distribution with the increase of particle diameter. When the coming angle is about 135 °, the pollution is the fastest. The contamination of upper surface is mainly influenced by free stream drag, and the contamination of lower surface is affected by gravity sedimentation most, then the average diameter of particles on the upper surface is smaller than that of particles on the lower surface.

Keywords: insulator; dynamic contamination; DEM-CFD method coupling method; particle adhesion rate